Comments on Three-Branes

Abstract

The Born--Infeld-like effective world-volume theory of a single 3-brane is deduced from a manifestly space-time supersymmetric description of the corresponding $D$-brane. This is shown to be invariant under $SL(2,R)$ transformations that act on the abelian gauge field as well as the bulk fields. The effective theory of two nearby parallel three-branes involves massive world-volume supermultiplets which transform under $SL(2,Z)$ into the dyonic solitons of four-dimensional $N=4$ spontaneously broken $SU(2)$ Yang--Mills theory.